and their works. The work may be difficult, but it can be done. If it cannot be done for the sake of one's office, it may be done for Christ and his church. A man must go to it with the same sturdy and determined enthusiasm with which Richard Baxter went into Cromwell's army, and argued with the fanatic soldiers, and plainly, but patiently, talked them down. In such a course, a minister may expect to do much good, and as a consequence, strengthen himself and his order. If he pursue the opposite course, he may indeed enwrap himself with the dignity of an imposing state, and make his people stare at his mysterious pretensions, and he may enjoy the ideal comfort of contending for a principle; but he will cut himself off from the substantial comfort of enjoying their warmest yet respectful sympathy, and of turning that sympathy to the highest and holiest uses. Perhaps he may gather about his ears a very hail-storm of domestic wrath, and have nothing left but the privilege of sighing for the good old times.

We desire, therefore, that the ministry of New England should have faith in the people, and instead of complaining that the people cannot govern themselves, should more confidently rejoice in the many advantages which the popular system insures. Let none of them sigh after the efficiency of a session or a presbytery, that they may execute sooner their own wise measures. Nor let them indulge a pusillanimous longing for the grateful quiet which is said to be diffused from the Episcopal throne; but let them set themselves with the utmost diligence, to make the fullest proof of the superior excellence of our own primitive and apostolic way.

This leads us to remark, that, although our system is the most popular in its principles, it has often failed, in a measure, of developing all its capabilities in this respect, and has not entrenched itself as it might, within the popular sympathies. The temptations to be careless in respect to this result, are not inconsiderable. Ours are the original churches of New England, and seem to hold the soil by right of prior occupation. We hold the sympathies of the most intelligent and wealthy of the people. Our system was transmitted to us by men of whom the world was not worthy. It is not surprising that we put excessive confidence in these advantages. We may trust too much to the impulse which has been given us in the past, and think it will of itself carry us forward, in spite of the open assaults of avowed enemies, and of the insinuating arts of proselyting dissenters.

Our ministers, too, are scholars and students. They are metaphysicians of course. Such men are sometimes satisfied, if they see the truth themselves, without sufficiently inquiring whether they lead others to see it. They are as familiar with the abstractions of systematic theology as with household words, and may suppose that to others such abstractions are as full of interest and of meaning as to them. They delight in the smooth and easy calmness of philosophical disquisition,

and forget that their hearers require the energy of popular argumentation. They are pleased and convinced by a clear and lucid essay, and do not remember that the hearts of their hearers are waiting to bound at the stirring notes of earnest and warm appeal.

Our system of doctrine has its peculiar truths. Rightly preached, they are eminently "the power of God unto salvation." They may be so preached, that those who hear, both the learned and the unlettered, if they understand them as presented, cannot but pervert them to their own destruction. They may be presented as if the object were not to commend the Gospel to the conscience, but to offend the conscience by dogmas abhorrent to its primal instincts.

There are weak and ignorant and excitable men in all our churches. Parties sometimes arise, and wax fierce and violent. It is not uncommon for the stronger faction to sacrifice to its obstinate self-will, the interest of the church, by driving off an exciting minority, whom a little forbearance and concession might have saved. In such a strife, the church and society acquires an inheritance of odium, which a generation cannot outlive. These things have been done at the instance of a minister, who knew the right so well, that he would drive it into his people.

There are portions of New England in which the clergy are enterprising, harmonious, and devoted to their work. As pastors and preachers, they labour with considerate energy and a just appreciation of the wants of their people. They are true Congregationalists, and rejoice in all the popular features of their system. Thus, while they sympathise with the people, they can reprove them with plainness and effect. They are in the midst of difficulties and excitements and proselyting efforts; but their churches prosper, and acquire a more preponderating influence. If there are parts of New England where this is not true of the Congregational interest, it is but fair to ask, whether the ministry are enterprising,-labouring with discretion and heart and hope, and bringing out, truly and fairly, the power of the Gospel and of our popular system.

If there is any one duty to which the New England clergy are summoned by the exigency of the times, that duty is, to study to be of the people. We contend not that they should flatter the easy vanity of the multitude, or excite their sectarian or malignant feelings, but we do contend that they should aim to secure for their preaching themselves, and their own system of church order, the honest and hearty sympathy of the public. They should know no arts but manly arts. Yet they may and should make their ministry to be a ministration of the Gospel to the wants of living men as they find them, and cause it to speak to their consciences, their social sympathies, and their republican feelings. The Gospel should be presented just as it lies in the pages of the Bible, not as a system of lifeless abstractions, nor as a

bristling phalanx of metaphysical dogmas, but as real and living truth. The aim of the preacher should be, so to present the Gospel, that it shall be understood,—so to present it, that it cannot but be understood. He should press it on the intellect with the force of resistless demonstration. He should make it to flash through the soul, as lightning illuminates an evening cloud. His intense and earnest desire should be, so to speak as to affect his hearers; and he should not be satisfied in any way until this object is secured. His pastoral ministrations should not be doled out with a reluctant hand; still less should they be robbed of their freshness and their zest, by peevish complaints of the excessive demands of his flock; but they should come warm from the heart of a sympathising monitor and friend. To be a preacher and a pastor, should put in requisition all that he is as a scholar and

a man.

He should also be much of a man among his fellow-men. He should interest himself in all the questions, political, moral, and social, which are now uppermost. In all that concerns the true interests of society, he should be himself a wakeful and thinking man, whose opinions smell not of the damp and stifling air of the cloister, but have been matured in the cheerful sunlight of the open atmosphere.

Thus will he realise the true idea of a religious teacher, and a minister of Christ. Before such a man there cannot stand up the modern pretender to an exclusive priesthood by virtue of the apostolic succession. Let the pretender reason and dogmatise as he will, he cannot persuade the people that such a pastor as we have described is not a lawful minister of Christ, or that he has no right to preach the Gospel. Into the daylight that radiates from such a pastor, it will be hopeless to bring out the mysteries of Puseyitish charlatanry, or the quackeries of regeneration by the Episcopal water, and of sanctification by the Episcopal eucharist. Nor will the insinuating arts of the busiest sectarian, nor the disorganising doctrines of the roving infidel in disguise, succeed beneath the eye of his wise vigilance.

We venture to suggest, whether there is not required in our congregations a more considerate attention to the order and details of public worship. Is not our public worship capable of being raised to a higher degree of interest and solemnity? It has been charged against us, that, in our assemblies, the sermon is made of too much account, in proportion to the other parts of the public service. Those who make this charge, forget that preaching is the great ordinance of Christianity, and that it hath pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Yet it may well be inquired, whether the demand which is made on our ministers for able and well-wrought discourses, and the manifest reasonableness of this demand, has not led them to give less attention than is due to the other parts of their office in the sanctuary. We have been truly taught—and the lesson is worth more than the most

venerable liturgy can be,-that the form and manner of worship are of little consequence compared with the spirit of the worshipper. But we may be in danger of forgetting that the full and fit expression of devotional thoughts and feelings, especially in public worship, is necessary not only to the highest decorum, but also to the proper excitement and culture of the spirit of devotion. The expression of any feeling re-acts upon the feeling expressed. It deserves to be considered, whether improvements are not required in this respect, and whether the attention of the clergy may not be directed to this subject with manifest advantage. The considerations of propriety, of good taste, and of pious feeling, all demand it, as well as the interests of our churches as a body.

We do not admire a liturgy. Least of all do we like the liturgy of the Episcopal church, for the practical uses of a Christian assembly. To us it is picturesque rather than devotional,—suited rather to impress the imagination than to express the worship of the spirit. This effect would be heightened, to our minds, if it were still in the original Latin, and yet more if it were performed in some structure of the middle ages, and with the music of the Sistine chapel. We do not ask for such a liturgy, or for any other; but we would propose to the ministry, as an object of study and of effort, the improvement of the manner and forms of public worship. While spiritual worship should be the great thing thought of, it should take its most graceful and appropriate external forms, and wear them with ease and dignity. To this end, we do not require any change in our system, but only more richness, comprehensiveness, and variety in public prayers, and the training of our congregations to the observance of any proprieties which they may have slighted. Much depends upon the manner of the pastor in conducting the services of the house of God. Religious affectation we abhor; but there is demeanour in the pulpit which not only accords with, but is demanded by the sacredness of the place. To be so much at ease in it as to be above its solemnities, or to affect an air of nonchalance, deserves banishment from its enclosure by an outraged community.

To add to the interest of our devotional services, some have proposed the reading of the Scriptures in alternate verses, by the pastor and the congregation. We dislike the proposal: we greatly prefer the spirited reading of appropriate selections by the pastor. It seems far better suited to the object for which the Scriptures are publicly read, and is better adapted to secure the attention of the people.

It has also been proposed, and the attempt has been made, to introduce into our churches a kind of chanting, not borrowed we believe, from Popish or Episcopal churches, but simpler and more suited to the nature and character of evangelical worship. To this we make no objection; indeed this is the way in which the Psalms, as given by Divine inspiration, were originally sung in the temple. The Psalms,

in the Hebrew, as David and Asaph composed them, are not metrical; and it has seemed to us that those Divine songs are more appropriate to be sung in an exact translation according to the original structure of the parallelisms, than they can be in any metrical version. Let Christian hymns be added, and metrical versions of the Psalms, to any required extent; but let us also retain these ancient songs in the style and form in which they were first uttered from hearts inspired of God. But the antiphonal way of chanting or reciting from the choir and the pulpit, we would let alone. It is not appropriate with us; it has no meaning. It is a theatrical exhibition for mere impression, and not a natural expression of the devotions of the congregation. It was against all that sort of church music, that the reformers protested and contended. Every such incongruous practice may attract by its novelty for a time, but, as it is not in keeping with the general style of our service, had better be let alone.

It deserves also to be asked, whether a stronger social feeling may not be cultivated in our societies, and an intenser warmth of kindly feeling called into life. Our New England manners are proverbially cold. Many of our religious societies, from being the oldest and in most cases the strongest, are far from being enterprising, especially when compared with those of the more recent sects. From their age, also, they sometimes have an accumulated inheritance of old prejudices, that result from divisions of wealth and family, as well as from ecclesiastical and political strife. There is also sometimes a bigoted prejudice against every thing which is not in the good old way. From these circumstances, advantage is taken against us, to detach individuals and families, whom a little attention might have retained. But this need not be so. We can do to retain such persons, what others do to detach them from us, as far as it is right or desirable that we should; and thus we may not only increase the strength of our communion, but these efforts may be the means of increased religious life. There is no way in which the pastor or his church can provide more effectually for kindly and saving impressions, than by laying hold of the sympathies of all. In no way can the young be kept back from folly and sin so effectually as by a cheerful air, and pleasant words, and manifest interest on the part of the religious community. If the members of our churches would lay themselves out thus to do good, many prejudices against religion would be avoided, their own piety would be kept from an austere and denunciatory spirit, and numberless avenues of good might be opened by a gentle hand. We desire not that their admonitions should be less frequent, or the steady assertion of the necessity of repentance and faith less pressing; but we do desire that the irreligious, and even the erring portion of the community, should not be repelled and held off at a studied distance. This human nature of ours was given by God, that through its sympathies and affections, the soul might be saved. Would